Finding fundamentals: a vent after when games go bad


Matt Demers wrote this a long time ago, but wanted to archive it.

It existed at BetterDota.com, but that site wasn't backed up, and is dead now. This is mostly an example of the type of things I wrote.


February 13, 2016

I’ve been having a rough couple days of Dota.

I know this sounds pretty cliched, but it seems like I’m tilting more and more, despite being actively able to recognize that I’m doing it. My mood is tanking due to perceived “dumb” mistakes by my team, and I’m not exactly being helpful in trying to get them to right it.

I’m not the type of person who actively rages, but I’m finding that I’m becoming more expressive, especially when I feel like someone is wasting my time. At my MMR bracket, things like drafting don’t mean as much as fundamentals – or so others will tell me.

It becomes hard, though, to think that drafts don’t matter when my team is almost fated to fail due to our weaknesses against our opponents’ strengths. Think type of thinking can be really self-defeating, but it’s really difficult to put yourself in the mindset that the game is winnable.

For example, I played a game on Thursday where I drafted Alchemist second out of our lineup. My team decided to then draft three more melee, late-game, farm-dependent heroes, when the enemy had shown that they had both Undying and Jakiro, two heroes that excel at having people fight into them due to their area-of-effect slows, disabled and damage.

So the game played out exactly how you would think: we tried to fight them, and due to better positioning and preparation due to our lack of vision, they won almost every time. Because we had a jungle hero Lifestealer, an Anti-Mage, and myself (all very greedy heroes), it was impossible to find farm anywhere on the map.

We could not establish vision. We could not find fights. We could not facilitate the environment that our heroes needed to thrive in, and part of that came back to the draft; we saw what the other team was building in response to our earlier picks, and we decided to do nothing about it.

Alchemist image

So my question is: what am I supposed to do about that? When I come out of the draft screen with a lineup like that, how do I remain positive when it’s more than likely I’m going to be wasting the next 45 minutes or more on a game that I cannot win?

I realize this attitude is self-defeating: if I don’t believe I can win, I know I can’t. But at the same time, there’s a degree of realism to it. If Dota was a game where anyone could pick any hero and be successful at it, half of the depth that comes with strategy, team synergy and execution wouldn’t exist.

When the Windranger in that game dominates me mid, and despite my asks for help, none comes, you’ll tell me I should go to the jungle. However, the Lifestealer is in the jungle, and competing with him for farm means neither of us will get optimal farm. If I leave mid to go somewhere else, the Windranger will push down the tower, the enemy team will establish control over the map, and then it just becomes a giant waste of time until they grow big enough to roll over us.

The most common response I’ve had for feedback to this game is that I should’ve just dropped the role of trying to be the carry, farm as a support, and make sure the other elements of my team could function. While in hindsight that would’ve been the logical option, it feels frustrating.

I picked my hero second. At this level, people should know what my hero does, and what he needs. He needs space. He needs items, because he’s not inherently strong. He needs help.

I posited some possible scenarios to my team:

  1. I pick a safe support that isn’t likely to be countered (or is useful if he/she is) in order to make sure that my team doesn’t pick and unsafe hero early. I don’t get to play what I want or find fun in the name of team synergy. However, I am completely trusting my team (who may not even speak the same language) to fill in the gaps that may remain open.
  2. I wait until late in the draft to plug the holes myself, forcing me into the roles teams want to play least (usually a position 5 or 6 support).

Neither scenario allows me to be the one accommodated; it’s the opposite, where I’m doing the accommodating, praying that the person playing a high-impact, farm-dependent, skill-intensive hero knows what he/she is doing and isn’t about to waste my time. Both scenarios don’t seem to be any fun.

This isn’t exactly me saying that support is a boring role; I enjoy playing support when I know that the rest of my team is willing to put in the work I am, and isn’t going to actively waste my time.

And I guess that’s what this comes down to; by streaming the entirety of my games, it becomes hard to want to play games that can drag out to an hour because the enemy team doesn’t seem to want to finish. I don’t want to waste both my or my viewers’ time; it also doesn’t help that being reminded that you suck – or well, you can’t right a ship that’s currently steering into an iceberg – isn’t a good feeling.

This post came off as a bit of a “why do my teams suck so bad” rant, and I kind of regret that it took that direction. This kind of discussion is inherent to any MOBA because of the length of game and the coordination needed to be successful.

However, I just needed to get my thought process out on paper, even if it’s only for people to tell me that I’m completely wrong. I don’t want to be a “salty” person; I want to be able to recognize my frustration, but I don’t want to just brush it off as inconsequential, either.

Just saying “well, yeah, you lost the game from minute one. You don’t get to be annoyed at that waste of time, so go run your face into a brick wall until the other team decides to end” seems like a pretty crappy proposition.

But maybe that’s Dota.

At the moment, I’m finding it hard to work on fundamentals in environments that aren’t conducive to it; while muting both teams and playing your own game is sometimes an option, sometimes it isn’t.

If I’m a support, my practice is skill layering and ward positions. However, if I can’t stay alive long enough to do any of those things, I feel like my time is being wasted.

If I’m a carry, there are games where I’m literally locked in my base sub-30 minutes due to the other team’s push, or focusing on farming without fighting means an opposing lane has 10 kills and is just that damn powerful. While it’s not a waste of time to practice farming, I feel helpless: how am I able to control how many deaths my teammates give up because of their poor choices? Do I distract from my current goals if it means that no one ends up successful? Do I divert resources just so that we can lose worse?

I don’t want to seem like I’m not recognizing that my own game needs a lot of work, and I am not trying to pawn my failures as a player off on the rest of my team. I am far from someone who thinks that other people are holding me back from higher rating.

All I’m feeling is that if I am constantly accommodating other people in my playstyle, it makes my role in the game suffer. At the same time, if I don’t, there is a good chance that the game might just end without my part mattering. And then I’ll get yelled at. And my MMR will suffer. And I’ll feel like that effort is wasted.

And I guess I don’t want that?

I wrote this pretty late at night, so I’m rambling by now. I apologize for the way this might come off; I’m venting a little bit and trying to rationalize the two schools of thought. I have had pros, coaches and other reputable people tell me one thing, and my brain is kind of fighting them on that; I know what they’re saying it right due to their experience, but what I’m seeing in front of me says otherwise.

I guess I’ll have to trust them on this, for now. Going to try to remain more positive and optimistic. Those fundamentals are what is going to make me better, and the MMR is just an indicator of progress.

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Pub: 24 Jan 2023 16:34 UTC
Edit: 26 Jan 2023 16:06 UTC
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